CBWR? Chapter 67

Author’s notes:

You can reply to other reviews now, in case you haven’t noticed.

Finally saw Water for Elephants.  I liked it, but I still think it should have been called “Whiskey for Elephants” instead.

You are beautiful like this.

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Chapter 67:

It felt like my brain was vibrating. I didn’t think I had ever gone so long without sleep, and I would have expected it to happen faster, but I didn’t just drop into unconsciousness like you would think.  I just lay next to Bella concentrating on the scent of her neck and the feeling of her hand on my face.

When her voice floated into my ears, I figured I must have fallen asleep.  Her soft words felt like they were caressing my neck and jaw on their way up to my ears.

“I don’t know what to think of you sometimes,” I heard her say.  “You must be the most bizarre man to ever live.  You’ve done simply horrible things, but inside it all it’s like you are just a little child looking for his mommy.  Why aren’t you angry with them?  They left you with nothing, but it doesn’t even occur to you that what they did was wrong.  Even when they were there, it doesn’t sound like you were ever given what you needed when you were little.”

The backs of her fingers ran over my neck.  The tingling in my skin seemed to match the tingling in my brain.  Everything felt warm. 

“You don’t even know what you are missing.  I don’t think you have any idea what it is like to care for someone, or to have someone care for you.  You wouldn’t even know it if it was happening.  You don’t know it when it’s happening.  No wonder you thought you had to buy yourself someone to be with you.”

“I want to hate you.”  Her voice was so soft in my dream, I could barely hear her.  Even though the sound was muted, the words still slammed into me like a wrecking ball.  “And I did, at first, but then I just thought you were the lesser of the evils in front of me.  Once I understood…really understood that you all but hand-picked me…”

Under my cheek I could feel her take a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“I hated you again.”  Her hand stopped moving on my cheek, and then it was gone from my skin entirely.  “If my mom had…if she had died...I would have killed you in your sleep the first chance I had.”

My dream had certainly turned nightmare, but there didn’t seem to be any way out of it.  Just like Bella had no way out of her nightmare…it would always be there, lurking in the back.  It didn’t matter if I could return her to the normalcy of her parents and her school friends; it would always haunt her existence.

“You look so peaceful when you are sleeping,” she said, and the strange dream took on yet another tone.  Her fingers started running over my face again, and I hoped this meant the nightmare was over.  “So much younger and…I don’t know…different.  Like maybe this is how you were supposed to be – the way you would have been if you had been raised right.  You are beautiful like this.”

I heard her sigh.

“I always thought you were the most attractive man I had ever seen.  It didn’t matter – not at first.  You were still ugly to me then.  But now…after everything you are trying to do for me…even though you know there’s nothing you can really do to make it right…it’s different now.  Somewhere inside of you is someone who could be caring and loving, if he only knew what it meant.  When I look at you now, I think maybe you really could be beautiful.”

“Bella…” I tried to get some words out, but like most dreams, I couldn’t make myself do what I wanted to do.  Her name came out as a breathy, sleep-filed whisper, and nothing more.  I tightened my grip around her waist, holding her close to me.

“Shh…”  I felt her hand cupping my cheek and her lips against my forehead again.  “Don’t wake up…shh…sleep now.”

As she said the word sleep this time, I felt my mind letting go, and I slowly drifted completely out of consciousness, with no more dreams to interrupt my rest.

It was all just a dream, right?

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Chapter end notes:

I always had a thing for that whole “what you hear when you are supposed to be asleep” thing from Eclipse.  Love that bit.  Not sure if I’ve worked it into every story, but certainly a lot of them!

More today?  Don’t know yet.  Maybe.  We’ll see.